To T. H. Huxley   21 February [1868]¹

My dear Huxley

I received the Jermyn St. programme,² but have hardly yet considered it, for I was all day on sofa on Tuesday & Wednesday. Bad though I was, I thought with constant pleasure of your very great kindness in offering to read the proofs of my essay on man.³ I do not know whether I said anything which might have appeared like a hint, but I assure you that such a thought had never even momentarily passed through my mind.—

Your offer has just made all the difference, that I can now write, whether or no my essay is ever printed, with a feeling of satisfaction instead of vague dread.—

Yours gratefully | Ch. Darwin

Beg my colleague M^rs. Huxley not to forget the corrugator supercilii: it will not be easy to catch the exact moment when the child is only on the point of crying & is struggling against the wrinkling up its little eyes, for then I sh^d. expect the corrugator, from being little under the command of the will, would come into play in checking or stopping of the wrinkling. An explosion of tears would tell nothing.—⁴